Before I start this post I first must explain my partner's job....bare with me, this will all make sense in a minute.
Basically he works for O2, he also happens to be the store's Sony Ambassador. He along with the help of this co-workers have to sell a certain amount of Sony phones each month and if they hit it he gets put into that month's prize draw.
So back in January, the top prize for that month was a trip for two to New York...I am guessing from this that you have guessed he won - he did!!
The trip was booked for the 27th May for three nights. This was a dream prize for both of us as New York is the one place we both wanted to go to the most in the world. The prize included flights, hotel, tickets for the Empire State Building and £500 spending money.
We set about booking the rest of the tickets to places we wanted to go to like The Statue Of Liberty, we wanted to do the guided tour of the 9/11 Museum, and also the Top Of The Rock.
We were all set and at last it came about, we were up at 5 am to get the train to Birmingham International and off we went.
We actually got some fantastic weather whilst we were there the woman in reception at the hotel said it was the first hot day they had, had there for this time of year. We managed to get extremely good weather the whole time we were there. People say don't walk to places in New York but to be fair we did actually do a lot of walking, our hotel was in a great spot, Times Square, Central Park, The Empire State Building and The Top Of The Rock were all 15-30 minutes away so the walking didn't bother us at all.
The first place we went to was Central Park, along the way we took a walk down 5th Avenue. It was amazing to see all these shops we don't have in the UK like Saks, Sephora etc. There was some beautiful buildings as well, we walked past St Patrick's Cathedral which is just stunning!
Central Park certainly didn't disappoint, it was absolutely stunning, even if we did get lost around there because I insisted we tried to find the Alice In Wonderland statue (HUUGE Alice fan here), we actually gave up believe it or not and then went and walked straight past it so thankfully I managed to see it. Central Park is a great place to sit on the lawn's and soak up the sun or to just take a lovely stroll and take in the sights.
The 9/11 museum and memorial was amazing, we decided to go with the guided tour and we are so glad we did now. It was a very emotional thing and if you are ever going to go I'd recommend the tour to everyone. I think the one thing that stuck with me the most was there is a wall with a quote on it. Behind this wall there still lies 40% of the victims of 9/11 all these bodies are yet to be identified. To hear this actually brought a tear to my eye, to think of all those families who still don't 100% know yet is truly horrible and upsetting.
To see the Freedom Tower up close is amazing, you know it's tall but it really just takes your breath away when you are stood near it.
The Empire State Building was something else we did, that was extremely busy as you would expect. The only bad thing is that when you get up there it is a very small space, so not a lot of room to maneuver so with that amount of people up there is was rather hard and a bit of a squash. However when you do manage to get up to the edge and see the view it is truly amazing! You can see the city for miles and all the buildings look incredible. We actually got to see the sun go down whilst we were there, it was so pretty and totally worth it. The photo's are slightly fuzzy looking but that is down to the fact it was that high up and the fog/mist was starting to come in unfortunately.
That was part one of my trip to New York. There is still so much to share with you that I will put up part 2 on Tuesday so please do check back when I will be sharing the Statue of Liberty, the Top Of The Rock and my experience of Bloomingdale's.
0 comments